Alongside Harvard College, to hear the Admissions Office tell it, exists a unique community of women and for women in the form of Radcliffe College and its student government, the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS).

Women students, according to the 1992-93 Harvard-Radcliffe Register, enjoy "the benefits of a co-educational experience while being members of the Radcliffe community, which is dedicated to promoting women's participation in all areas of life."

But the reality is a little less tidy.

Far from being a cohesive community, Radcliffe today attempts to represent a wide range of women's viewpoints and lifestyles, with what many students say is mixed success.

For some, Radcliffe means garden parties and graduates in Laura Ashley dresses; for others, outspoken feminists wearing hats with the legend "FCS"--for "Final Clubs Suck."

In fact, the way in which the college is most representative of women is that it too is trying to decide when to assume traditional female roles and when to challenge the system.

This tension is usually resolved in the direction of accommodation rather than protest by Radcliffe's top officials, including President Linda S. Wilson. "Society changes slowly....You can go a little bit faster than society but you can't go too much faster," says Wilson.

This attitude on the part of college officials has sometimes led to strained relations with RUS, which has histor- ically been more openly political. Over thepast 20 years RUS has, for instance, repeatedlydemanded that Radcliffe adopt stances againstfinal clubs and in favor of a women's center, onlyto meet with polite administrative resistance.

In 1990, after Wilson's first year in office,RUS members complained of problems working withRadcliffe bureaucrats who they said distrustedthem as "some kind of fringe radical group."

In the two years that followed, Radcliffeofficials more than once suggested that RUS didnot represent the spectrum of women at thecollege, but only a particular group with narrowlydefined interests.

"It's very hard to be representative of astudent body that is relatively large and as richand as varied as this," Radcliffe Dean PhilipaBovet, the group's advisor, says. "I think [RUS]is perceived as, and at times has been,representative of a narrower group."

Certainly, RUS--whose active membershipconsists of whomever attends its weeklymeetings--has no built-in structures to make itaccountable to the campus as a whole.

"It is a very self-selected group of women,"says Minna M. Jarvenpaa '93, the group'sco-president.

Radcliffe officials have also questioned RUS'smethods, which have at times been far moreconfrontational and political than those employedby the college.

Jarvenpaa said Bovet wants to make RUS workwithin the system. "She would like the RadcliffeUnion of Students to really interact with both theHarvard and the Radcliffe administrations and makeinitiatives."

Sorting Things Out